Thursday, December 03, 2009

The State of State Universities

The New York Times recently conducted a discussion between a number of prominent academics on the state of public universities. The jumping-off point was the state of California's public universities and starts with the following question: "As they deal with tighter budgets, what should public universities do to balance fiscal responsibility and equal opportunity?"

Among the participants was Richard Vedder, an economist and economic historian from Ohio University where I received my PhD. I know Professor Vedder but never took a class with him at the Contemporary History Institute, with which he is affiliated as a professor and I was affiliated as a student. I disagree with much that he says but I am always glad to see OU folks getting such attention.

3 comments:

Great link. Yeah, Prof. Vedder's argument (small as it is, could the NYT given any less space for discussion?), especially that second paragraph, is a generalization that runs counter to my own experience. My family was not moderately prosperous, nor we were technically poor (though close). And here are the financial benefits I'm reaping--$35,000 in student loans (I have paid on em' for 10 years, I now owe $31,000), a sum that is just short of crippling, as it prevents from A) truly investing in a house and B) saving much money. In other words, my parents--who both never went to college, and who made less money than me--have (or had) more to show for their work than I do....

Matt -- In recent years Williams has pretty much eliminated loans and simply provided full need amounts. But of course that was after my time. We were poor fgrowing up, so we got pretty much full need met, but that included loans, and so I have some, though not an enormous amount. However I also took out a couple of loans in grad school, and so like you, I'll be paying mine off for the foreseeable future. I actually have it taken out of direct deposit and could not even tell you how much I've chipped away, which might be for the better.